THE Supreme Court (SC), sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) has set the preliminary conference on the electoral protest of former Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo in June.
SC Spokesman Theodore Te said the justices made their decision to grant Marcos’s request for the setting of the preliminary conference during their en banc session in Baguio City on Tuesday.
“The PET granted protestant’s [Marcos’s] motion for the setting of the preliminary conference and has set this case for preliminary conference on June 21, 2017, at 2 in the afternoon, without prejudice to the Tribunal’s resolution of all remaining pending incidents,” Te said.
However, the Tribunal in the same resolution also said it would conduct the preliminary conference on Robredo’s counterprotest at the same time.
“Considering, however, that Rule 3 of the 2010 PET Rules mandate the rules are to be liberally construed to achieve a just, expeditious and inexpensive determination and disposition of every contest before the tribunal, the PET has deemed it proper to conduct the preliminary conference of both protests jointly, and the issues raised during the preliminary conference should include issues of the protest and the counterprotest,” the resolution added.
In line with this, the Court directed both camps to file their preliminary conference briefs with the PET and serve the same on the adverse party at least five days before the date of the preliminary conference.
The PET said the preliminary conference briefs should contain the following: The possibility of obtaining stipulations or admissions of facts and documents to avoid unnecessary proof, the simplification of the issues, the limitation of the number of witnesses and the most expeditious manner for the retrieval of ballot boxes containing the ballots, elections returns, certificates of canvass and other election documents involved in the election protest.
Marcos filed an election protest against Robredo in June 2016, contesting 39,221 clustered precincts, which are composed of 132,446 established precincts.
Robredo, meanwhile, filed a counter-protest, questioning 8,042 clustered precincts, which are composed of 31,278 established precincts.
On Tuesday the PET directed Robredo to pay the total cash deposit of P15.44 million for her counter protest covering 31,278 clustered precincts.
Te said the Tribunal denied Robredo’s motion for reconsideration of its resolution issued on March 21.
The PET ordered Robredo to pay the cash deposit within a nonextendible period of five days from notice of resolution.
“The PET denied Robredo’s motion for reconsideration of the resolution dated March 21, and directed protestee Robredo to pay the cash deposit as stated in the said resolution within a non-extendible period of five days from notice of resolution,”
The PET, on the other hand, deferred action on the omnibus motion to dismiss counter-protest filed by Marcos, until Robredo complies with the directive to pay the deposit.
In the March 21 resolution, Robredo was ordered to pay P8 million for the first installment and P7.43 million for the second, for a total of P15.44 million.
Marcos on the other hand was directed to pay P66.02 million.
He paid P36.02 million as his first installment with the second amounting to P30 million to be paid on or before July 14 this year.
It will be recalled that Marcos filed an election protest against Robredo in June 2016, contesting 39,221 clustered precincts which are composed of 132,446 established precincts.
Robredo, meanwhile, filed a counter-protest, questioning 8,042 clustered precincts which are composed of 31,278 established precincts.
Marcos has assailed Robredo’s plea and asked the PET to dismiss her counter-protest since she failed to settle the first installment as directed by the Tribunal.
In arguing for the dismissal of the counter-protest, Marcos cited Rule 34 of the 2010 PET Rules, which states “if a party fails to make cash deposits or additional deposits herein required within the prescribed time limit, the Tribunal may dismiss the protest or counter-protest, or take such action as it may deem equitable under the circumstances.”